Emilee09

I think the topic of Compassion Fatigue is very interesting!!!!! We use to toss around the idea of Post traumatic Stress for nurses, but.... it never really fit. Not sure who coined the termology but it really fits the profession- and if you add in the idea that a large number of nurses suffer from co-dependency you really get a good fit!!

I think its way to sad that our administration can't see what its doing to this profession. I totally understand what you mean by being "thrown out", and I too think its from salary maxes- they can hire two new for the price of one old- however when you have no old/experienced nurses the quality of care goes down- then administration can't seem to get a handle on why the satisfaction scores are down both from the patients and the staff. I also know what it means to work without ancillary help- nobody to answer the phone, no one to be the go getter, no one to relieve the nurse from her bedside tasks so that she can do the "paperwork" that has to be done for accreditation and reimbursement and legal reasons. Nurses now have to do the work of at least three additional people- housekeeping, nursing assistant and unit secetary. (and on our unit - lab tech). However, no increases in salaries came with adding these job descriptions! - Oh well I guess Florence would be proud of the Twenth century nurses and how we are struggling to keep patients comfortable, aide them in healing, teaching them how to prevent disease and complications while escorting them out the swinging doors, only to readmit a new patient in their bed before it cools off!

You summed it up great: Nursing is just hard work, physically and mentally. I think we all need to share that with as many people as we can, as often as we can. Unfortunately, this is a 24/7 profession b/c we do not stop nuturing/caring when we clock out... we nurse our families, our neighbors, strangers in need and we take on many "extra" responsibilities in our communities. We should pat ourselves on the back for our accomplishments and learn to say no.

Gosh, what a topic! It is so great to read about this from so many different perspectives. I have been a nurse for 29 years and I love my job! I too had burn out- was physically ill and required a mental health break, to recover. Everyone has had valid points, from the cooporate greed, to the injustice of the care ordered and being delivered. How do we as nurses survive? We have to make peace for ourselves within ourselves. Being happy is a choice. We have to remember that we have a given talent and that talents are meant to be used. We have to have good boundaries to be able to separate ourselves from our jobs. We have to nurse our bodies and make ourselves strong. Remember that one field of nursing may not be the best field for you and that when one door closes it is usually b/c another one will be opening. Thats what is so great about this profession. We can be caring, nuturing nurses anywhere we choose to be.

I work on the peds unit and we use the bandaide type pulse ox probes too. I think there is a couple of things we should do to make sure the equipment works well, first is to take time to clean the skin with alcohol where we are appling the probe- alcohol removes the skin oil and makes the probe adhere better, the second thing is that if you really want it to stay put- use an adhesive skin prep. once you have your probe placed make sure you check your equipment and that the alarms are set properly (on peds, sometimes people forget to change the settings and the alarm ranges are very different) then as the other person said, check your wave form, and the patient. The patient's condition is what should trigger your alarm, not the sound of the equipment alarm. Patients do have flucuations in sao2 levels, depending on their activity, strive to keep them > 94% and you will be fine.